The song ended too soon after that and then someone clinked silverware on a glass, starting the time for speeches.
Pulling Cini to the head table with me, I found the rest of our pack already sitting and looking bored as all of Amante’s men began to wax on about new beginnings and the power of the Amante family.
It was like a fucked up countdown to the end of the night right up until Amante stood up last with a smug look on his face.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, it seems the time has finally come. As you all know, I constantly look to the future when it comes to our little family and I have been worried for some years that my direct line would end with me. Now, I can safely say that is not the case.”
There were cheers from the crowd and I had to clench my teeth together to keep from growling at his words.
This was supposed to be a wedding speech about his daughter, and yet all he could talk about was what he wanted and how he was going to use her to get it. It was disgusting.
I glanced over at Cini, expecting her to look hurt by her father’s words, but all I found was a bored indifference as she played with the food on her plate.
Looking over her head, though, I found the angry gazes of the rest of my pack ready to meet mine.
“To the future of the Amante family!” Amante said, raising his glass of champagne.
We lifted up our own full glasses, our resolve clear: we would be the future of this family.
After all, the life of the woman now at the center of our pack depended on it.
“To the room, to the room!” The raucous crowd chanted as they followed us down the long hallway to the hotel suite that would serve as the place for our wedding night.
I ignored them, steering Cini in front of us as I tried to push down the sudden tangle of nerves in my stomach.
It wasn’t like I’d never done this before, and yet as my mouth was still dry, and even though my nose was still filled with her sweet honeydew scent, I found myself suddenly anxious.
Thankfully the door came into view and Ranieri was already pressing the key card to the little electrical panel above the handle before ushering us inside.
“Elio,” Amante’s voice stopped me.
Nodding to the rest of my pack, I turned to face him where he stood with his hands non-chalantly tucked into his pockets.
“You know what your task is, correct?”
My fists clenched with the urge to deck him right here and now.
I had never been more glad that the man, despite being an alpha, had the dullest senses of anyone I had ever met. Otherwise, he probably would have felt the pheromones full of rage wafting off of me at his words.
“I do,” I finally managed to say, keeping my face impassive.
The man reached out and gave my shoulder a firm pat, like he was a father offering his son advice and not a man who had sold his daughter off to the Russians to become a science experiment.
“Good, because if you four can’t figure it out, then I’m not afraid to annul the marriage and find someone who can.”
His words were a clear warning.
Even though we had played the role of pious adoptive sons to him after Alesso’s death, I had long suspected that the man was onto us and our plans to free Cini.
It was likely why we were still trying to figure it out six years later.
I gave him a silent nod before turning to follow my pack into the hotel suite.
“She went to take a bath,” Ranieri said as soon as the door shut behind me.
The three of them looked pensive, as if they had been talking about something before I came in.
“What?” I asked, feeling uncomfortable under their scrutinizing stares.
